In their perpetually parroted charge that Democrats are
"socialist, communist, Marxist," extremist Republican propagandists
are guilty of either (a) outrageous lying or (b) colossal
ignorance. By every basic measure of economic performance - GDP
growth, employment growth, stock-market profits and federal debt
control - Democrats are better capitalists than Republicans, by
overwhelming margins.

Republicans adamantly refuse to be confused by the statistical
facts. Over the past 60 years, annual GDP growth per capita has
risen 70 percent faster under Democratic administrations (2.78
percent vs. 1.64 percent under Republicans).

Note 1: In the past half century, employment has grown at a 75
percent higher annual rate under Democratic presidents than under
Republicans. Note 2: Stock-market profits show even greater
disparity - an average annual 13 percent increase in the S & P
index under Democratic presidents, more than twice the 6 percent
under Republicans. These figures cover the last 85 years.

In their most incessantly repeated falsehood, hammering lies
into blockheads' skulls via the repetitive technique of Joseph
Goebels, Republicans claim that cutting taxes for multimillionaires
always increases federal revenues. Rush Limbaugh is a notorious
purveyor of this ideological fantasy.

It is decisively contradicted by the facts. In the post
World-War-II era, federal debt skyrocketed under the two biggest
tax cutters.

Under Reagan, federal debt increased by 61 percent (from 33 to
53 percent of GDP). Under George W. Bush, it increased by some 40
percent. Only one other president, Bush 41, increased federal debt
in the last 65 years.

Republicans are understandably silent about their one great
economic achievement: a drastic redistribution of wealth from poor
and middle-class families to multimillionaires. In the past three
Republican-dominated decades, incomes of the top .01 percent
(average annual $13 million) have increased by nearly 400 percent,
30 times the trivial 12 percent gain in median income.

Note 3: And during this era when their party dominated national
politics (abetted by cooperative Democrats), effective tax rates
for the super-wealthy fell by 11 percent.

It is, however, their overall economic failure - notably a
per-capita growth rate lower than Europe's - that presents
Republicans with a really tough question: Why do allegedly
socialist Democrats historically do so much better at running our
capitalist economy?

C.W. (Bill) Griffin is a retired consulting engineer. He has
lived in Ahwatukee Foothills for 22 years.